Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system, an information processing apparatus, a print control apparatus, methods of respectively controlling them, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
It is common that, if there is an issue with an information processing apparatus, the customer who purchased the information processing apparatus finds how to address the issue by, for example, directly making a call to a call center of the manufacturer, and if the issue still cannot be solved, a service person from the manufacturer visits the customer to solve the issue. If a service person visits a customer, in some cases, a lot of time is required before the issue is solved. For example, time is spent arranging a time to visit, time is spent travelling, and time is spent visiting again after work if the service person does not have the necessary equipment with him/her. For this reason, a remote maintenance system has been conceived of. In this system, a terminal device such as a personal computer in a call center remotely connects to an information processing apparatus via a network, so that an operation screen or the like of the information processing apparatus can be directly operated from the call center.
In the case of an image forming apparatus, for example, such a system can be realized by using a virtual network computing (VNC) server function, which is one of the server functions that are supported by the image forming apparatus. By using a VNC server in this way, it is possible to enable the screen of a terminal device in the call center to display the operation screen of the image forming apparatus. Consequently, an operator or a service person at the call center can operate the operation screen of the image forming apparatus from the call center as if he/she is in front of the image forming apparatus (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2015-032224).
In some cases, a print control apparatus (print server) that performs image processing in conjunction with an image forming apparatus is connected to an image forming apparatus. Such a print control apparatus is connected directly to an image forming apparatus, using a network cable or a dedicated cable, and the print control apparatus is connected to a local area network (LAN). In other words, the image forming apparatus is connected to the network via the print control apparatus. In such a configuration, the VNC server function of the image forming apparatus usually cannot be used from a terminal device on the LAN, and therefore a network address translation (NAT) function is implemented in the print control apparatus. With this function, upon receiving a connection request from a terminal device on the LAN to connect to the VNC server of the image forming apparatus, the print control apparatus transfers the connection request to the image forming apparatus. Consequently, it is possible to use the VNC server function of the image forming apparatus from the terminal device on the LAN.
However, with the above-described conventional technology, in the case of a system in which an image forming apparatus is connected to a network via a print control apparatus, there is a problem in which it is impossible to effectively perform remote maintenance of the image forming apparatus from a call center. Specifically, upon receiving remote maintenance access (access to the VNC server) from the call center, the print control apparatus transfers the access to the VNC server of the image forming apparatus. Consequently, the service person at the call center can operate the operation screen of the image forming apparatus. However, the service person cannot operate the screen of the print control apparatus. If a print control apparatus is connected to an image forming apparatus, the user inputs various operations to the image forming apparatus from the print control apparatus. Therefore, if a service person at the call center cannot operate the operation screen of the print control apparatus, there may be cases in which he/she cannot solve an issue with the image forming apparatus.